RE/Outlook Integration: When Technology Becomes a Fundraiser

In the spirit of technology and blogging, I just want to introduce my ‘cyberself.’ My name is Katy and I’m an RE support analyst. As most of you who have ever contacted support know, email is a very common form of communication. I typically receive around 100 emails a day and embrace it! While my daily email income consists of coworkers’ and RE users’ emails, I welcome the idea that two major tools in my daily routine, The Raiser’s Edge and Microsoft Outlook, can collaborate on their own to keep my mind at ease. 

In this blog, I hope to make you familiar and comfortable with RE/Outlook integration so you can use it in your daily practice – to your benefit!

From a fundraising standpoint, this is a nearly priceless tool that is key in maintaining a donor base. RE/Outlook integration allows you to keep a record of your constituents, actions, and organization contacts in both programs. Also, it is an integral part in Moves Management.

Let’s consider a few examples:

• You’re scheduled to make an upcoming phone contact with one of your top donors as part of an Action track, but you don’t typically work directly within The Raiser’s Edge. The integration piece allows you to synchronize the RE action ‘reminder’ for the phone call with Outlook appointments without having to access the action record in RE.
• You are going to send an email to one of your solicitors. You can create an email in Outlook, link the email to an action in RE, and even store the email so that you can view it later.
• A Board member or CEO contacts your top constituent. In this conversation, the constituent indicates he moved and provides updated address information. This information is entered into Outlook and can then be transferred into RE even though your colleague doesn’t work in The Raiser’s Edge.

All of the above examples are perfect reasons to use integration! One of the first steps to setting it up is to configure RE to work with Outlook. Once this is complete, you should see a Raiser’s Edge toolbar in Outlook.

Keep in mind:
- This is a workstation specific setting.
- Certain Raiser’s Edge security rights are required to work with Outlook integration (BB80024)

Once integration is established, you can synchronize your Outlook contacts with RE constituent and contact records (all records or a query). Further, you can synchronize your Outlook Calendar events or tasks with RE actions, appeals, and events. Note: The Event module is required to synchronize with Events. For more information, check the The Raiser's Edge and Microsoft Office Integration Guide in User Guides.

After the records are linked, you can view the information in Outlook’s Contacts. You can even go to the corresponding constituent record directly from Outlook if you’re working between both programs on a standard basis. You can also store emails for your integrated RE constituents in your action records (BB106844).

Hopefully these tips will ready you for the Integration! I welcome any comments or questions you might have on this piece as it will really help you build your donor base!